Requiem Redux

I feel like they missed a trick when they relaunched this game and didn't call it Requiem: Redux.

I won't deny I was dubious about returning to the blog with Requiem. I've wanted to give this game a place in the rotation for a long time, due to it being the only MMO I've spent any length of time in that I hadn't revisited since 2019... but at the same time I remembered Requiem as being a simplistic and nearly plotless grindfest, and I wasn't sure it would hold me for 24 hours of /played time. Nostalgia can only carry a game so far.

So I've been pleasantly surprised that not only have I got through my time in Requiem, but I've enjoyed it. The game is a lot like I remembered but it's worked for me despite that, or maybe because of that.

More on that in a moment.

I simply can't be objective when it comes to this game. Requiem is the first MMO I ever played and that gives it a unique place in my affections that not even City of Heroes can match. This undoubtedly informs my opinion of the game, but even so this isn't an MMO I'd casually recommend.

Requiem has issues – it does lack complexity and it is low on story and it is grindy. It can also be glitchy and feels slow to respond at times, and it's crashed on me more than once during this run. Fans of obscure and oldschool MMOs may well find something to enjoy in this game but anyone looking for a more modern and polished experience should look elsewhere.

There's some strange design decisions – gear drops are frequent but most of it is level locked at 20, 25, 30 and so on... so get used to picking up drops that you won't be able to equip for several levels. The main story quest (such as it is) starts in an area that you have no reason to go to if you completed the tutorial, and I only found it because I went looking for a dungeon I remembered from my original time in the game and there was the questgiver standing outside the dungeon entrance.

(The dungeon – Chaste Sanctum – is level 20, so why a level 1 questgiver is hanging around outside it is anyone's guess.)

Similarly odd in its placement is the quest you get around level 15 that tells you to go to the game's first group dungeon, but doesn't tell you where said dungeon is, or even what zone it's in; hint: it's not the one you're in. I tripped over the entrance 10 levels later, in the main hub of a different zone. Quest flow is not this game's strong point.

Requiem is a surprisingly relaxing experience. Relaxing might seem like an odd word to use to describe a game that's almost entirely about gore spattered mob grinding, but every so often I'd find myself falling comfortably into the rhythm and the time would fairly fly by. There's little to take you out of the loop and the kill quotas, and the drop rates for the inevitable 'collect 10 of X' quests, aren't so excessive that it starts to feel like work.

Another thing that works in Requiem, and surprisingly well, is its atmosphere. By this I don't just mean the visuals, though it certainly commits to everything being so grim and gothic that the developers of Warhammer 40,000 would probably ask them to dial it back a bit. The ambient sound and music are also good, but it's the other details that really give Requiem its particular atmosphere.

Requiem skips the comfortable rolling green hills and green forests of many MMO starter zones and goes straight to the barren hellscapes, where you find yourself locked into an endless cycle of monster slaughter in a world where everything is just slightly off. The quest text is inconsquential and the characterization of the NPCs is next to non-existent, and this sparse exposition and stilted dialogue gives the game an almost abstract quality.

Of course this isn't necessarily intentional. A lot of this atmosphere can be attributed to sketchy world building and iffy translation, and monsters that are basically the standard weirdness of mobs in Asian games only with extra gruesomeness layered on top. Regardless, it works. Other MMOs try to draw the player into the world, but in Requiem you feel like an intruder.